(Knowing that T. Boone Pickens is the Texas oil billionaire who funded the Swift Boaters against John Kerry in 2004, I find myself questioning his motives in settling on wind, sun and natural gas as the only alternative energy sources to oil. Wind and solar power are renewable energy sources but natural gas is not. I’m not an expert in any of these areas but it does concern me that Mr. Pickens’ plan depends on private and government land leases and tax subsidies for the development of his energy plan. He will need land use rights and new transmission lines to install wind power generators from the Dakotas to the Texas Panhandle and solar power sites from Texas to California, all of which will be owned by whom? T. Boone Pickens?

What’s going to work best for ALL of us? You say your plan will reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and most Americans agree that will be a good thing. You say yourself, “Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns.” Who would pay for it?

In your plan at, http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/, you don’t mention anything about the cost of building solar energy plants from the Texas Panhandle to California and the transmission lines to distribute that energy to businesses and homes in America. If we’re all going to participate in the creation and deployment of this new energy infrastructure, who’s going to own it, price it and control it, you? How does that serve America’s best interest? You have a good idea but we must all be included in the discussion to determine what’s going to work best for ALL of us. Until we include ‘ALL’ of us in our calculations, we’ll continue to go in different directions, canceling each other’s energy (no pun intended) out, with rare exception.

Keep an open mind:

Also, there are many new and promising technologies in the process of development. Too often, the money, power and privilege junkies among us, slam the door on anything that doesn’t profit them directly. I pray you are beyond this short-sighted mindset and encourage the people around you to keep an open mind as we seek to save ourselves from ourselves. After all, what better legacy can we leave behind than a positive and loving memory of the lessons we learned and the person we became in life.

Pete

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Pogo

What would the world be like if, instead of competing for money, power and privilege, we cared more about becoming better people and changing the world for the better?

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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Is the Bush “Administration” (now there’s a kind term for you) attempting to redefine abortion to include birth control? It seems so. When MoveOn.org reported this matter I just couldn’t help myself and let fly. Too bad the HHS only allows 150 words per comment because I could only include the first two paragraphs from the letter below. However, you get to see it all.

August 28, 2008

Subject: New Abortion Rules

Birth control pills (pregnancy prevention) are abortion? You’ve got to be kidding! Does this apply to guys who wear condoms too? Why not shove “abstinence” down everyone’s throat and take away individual rights at the same time?

The level of hypocrisy and stupidity in this administration is beyond belief! What’s the next step, arrest women for ovulating and guys for masturbating and “wasting” their seed? Babies are innocent and need protection but so are the grown babies we call adults. Young men and women in their late teens are perfectly fine to use as gun fodder by ideologues and profiteers but zygotes (a woman’s egg immediately after fertilization) in the womb are to be protected at all costs and under any circumstances. Have I got that right? Isn’t it time for “God’s children” to grow up?

Before retiring from bus driving, when I drove through Oakmont, a large retirement community in northern California, I used to watch how quail families reacted to the approach of my bus. The babies would quickly run at a right angle away from the bus while the parents would run around in circles in front of it, until the last possible moment. Does this sort of confusion and dumbing down happen to adult humans too? I don’t like to be sarcastic but, boy, some folks sure make it easy.

Pete

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Visit The LifeSong Store where the world comes to shop for inspirational and life-changing ideas on T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, hoodies and more. Change the world for the better with POTS! (Philosophy On T-Shirts)

“The energy that is you seeks the purpose of every linear life that it creates. We often are asked the purpose behind the creation of one’s physical self. The intent of existence [is] often lost amongst the multiple confusing dramas created by the ego of the physical.

The muddled energy behind all these dramas sends mixed messages to the conscious self creating confusion for the individual who is truly engaged in finding the reason for their current existence.

‘What is my purpose?’

The soul knows its intent but the ego attached to the physical manifestation becomes enraptured with the experience and loses all focus upon its original intent.

Those who wish to engage their soul should perhaps stop focusing upon their physical dramas and beckon a silent moment void of talk, movement or sound: The silence of all moments that shout different perspectives & expectations of a linear self that no longer adheres to the wishes of the soul.

This separation is the seed of all discontent with the physical. Unfortunately all who seek guidance with their purpose are often at the precipice of revelation. The ego, however, desperate to maintain its dominance will participate in any way it can to save its hold upon the individual.

‘What do I do? The ever present question of those seeking evolvement.

What to do indeed…

The best prescription is silence. Silence of all those ego based moments that resound in your heart & mind leaving you confused & desperate.

The soul was caste from a symphony of silence while all those in attendance joined in chorus, but it is the silence of ego that propels it to manifestation.

All the voices of your physical self taking a moment of silence while engaging the vocals of your soul will lead you to an understanding of your purpose.

It is not as you imagined it. It is not an event but an intricately woven tapestry of many lives that may or may not crescendo in your current life. Understand that in the end it is your soul intent that will prevail. Silence your ego and the path will become more available but not necessarily final.

Realize that physical life is a stairway to your enlightenment on a soul level. Each step important but it takes many steps to reach the next level. To judge your footsteps only impedes your process. Focus upon the stepping towards the goal, which is the reuniting with your intent & soul.

Progress occurs every moment, it just may not seem so from your current perspective.”

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Visit The LifeSong Store where the world comes to shop for inspirational and life-changing ideas on T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, hoodies and more. Change the world for the better with POTS! (Philosophy On T-Shirts)

If we want to survive as a species, we must realize what we’ve done is not nearly as important as what we do now and in the future. Too often we waste time finding fault with ourselves and the world, instead of using our time to create a better self and a better world.

We are both one AND separate but many of us forget this fact and think of ourselves as separate only. As a result, we ask, what’s going to work best for me? This sets us off in different directions, which leads to conflict and the need for strong external controls.

To restore balance and self-control, we must ask ourselves, what’s going to work best for ALL of us – in personal terms, and in terms of business, education the environment and peace?

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Visit The LifeSong Store where the world comes to shop for inspirational and life-changing ideas on T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, hoodies and more. Change the world for the better with POTS! (Philosophy On T-Shirts)

My wife and I believe in your ideals and want to do something to reflect the real issues people are concerned about in this presidential campaign and at this moment in human history. The enclosed brochure contains twenty two hard hitting ideas on t-shirts, buttons, hats and signs. Many reflect the consequences of continuing to have republican conservatism in the White House. The cynicism, greed and contempt for the public shown by big business and the Bush Administration is unacceptable and people who continue to reelect them need to see, clearly, what they are voting for.

What would the world be like if, instead of competing for money, power and privilege, we cared more about becoming better people? To paraphrase Apollo 11 astronaut, Neil Armstrong, as he set foot on the moon, July 20, 1969, That would be one small step for a man and one giant leap for mankind.

What would life be like if we cared more about how we treat ourselves and one another than how much money, power and privilege we amass? Instead of a Lower, Middle and Upper Class with an “external” value system, we would have something like a Lower, Middle and Upper Way with an “internal” value system. If we made the jump from one value system to the other today, many in the Upper Class would fall to the Lower Way because of the way they treat themselves and others and many from the Lower Class would rise to the Upper Way because of the way they treat themselves and others.

This is not to say there’s anything wrong with money, power and privilege; like every form of energy, it’s how we use it that matters. We can use energy in constructive ways or destructive ways. Think what would happen to the crime rate if our cultural focus shifted from competing for money, power and privilege to becoming better people. The crime rate would drop dramatically because learning how to treat ourselves and one another better is something we can all do. We all want to be loved and valued. Think what would happen in education if our primary goal became learning how to be who we loved to be and do what we loved to do instead of being who we’re told to be and doing what we’re told to do. Think of the natural passion, love and appreciation that change would unleash and what it would do for us as individuals and the world.

When creating good jobs and safe products for a healthy economy issues from our desire to change ourselves and the world for the better, our universe becomes a safer place. When jobs and goods are created to make us rich and powerful in a competitive world where life is seen as a matter of survival of the fittest, we feel unsafe and insist on strong regulation to protect ourselves from divisiveness, blind ambition and outright lies. Great business leaders, great philosophers and great political and spiritual leaders like you would still arise, given the need, but for different reasons. We would aspire to greatness out of love of self and public service, not fear, egotism and a drive for self-survival in a hostile world. We CAN change ourselves and the world for the better if we replace the acquisition of money, power and privilege as our primary goal with the goal of learning how to treat ourselves and one another better.

If we want to survive as a species, we must realize what we’ve done is not nearly as important as what we do now and in the future. Too often we waste time finding fault with ourselves and the world, instead of using our time to create a better self and a better world.

We are both one AND separate but many of us forget this fact and think of ourselves as separate only. As a result, we ask, what’s going to work best for me? This sets us off in different directions, which inevitably leads to conflict and the need for strong external controls.

To achieve balance and SELF-control, we must first ask ourselves, what’s going to work best for ALL of us? This becomes a moral imperative, like “survival of the fittest” only, instead of a command that produces mindless and often destructive behavior; it asks a question that engages our minds in creative soul-searching, which leads to self-discovery and personal growth. We can further ask, what’s going to work best for ALL of us in personal terms, and in terms of business, education, the environment and peace? All are questions to engage the creative side of man for we are both the product of creation and the process of creation, itself.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Visit The LifeSong Store where the world comes to shop for inspirational and life-changing ideas on T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, hoodies and more. Change the world for the better with POTS! (Philosophy On T-Shirts)

We are both the products of creation and creation itself. We are both one AND separate. We are both physical AND nonphysical (we dream and imagine, and “physical” reality only exists in the moment, as we know it). Each one of us is creating our own unique version of the universe from moment to moment, some of it shared and some not. There is no right or wrong, good or bad; there just IS. We have free will and there is nothing we HAVE to do, only what we want to do. Which self, which world do we want to create?

Why limit ourselves to small pictures of who we are and what reality is, and argue over justification for what often amounts to short-sighted, self-serving behavior that threatens our long term chances for survival? Let’s THINK outside the box and DO what works best for ALL of us because, ultimately, we all depend on each other to at least give us room to be, if not embrace us with love and appreciation.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Visit The LifeSong Store where the world comes to shop for inspirational and life-changing ideas on T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, hoodies and more. Change the world for the better with POTS! (Philosophy On T-Shirts)